When to Say No
by MCalhen
Summary: Peter only thinks he can say "no" to Neal, but Neal knows - as does Peter - that there is always a way around it. Fluffy, family fic, but might be seen as having hints of Peter/El/Neal.


_**AN:** This is my first time ever submitting White Collar fanfiction even though I've written a lot of it in the past few months. (I'm embarrassed to say that I mainly have been working on a White Collar/Doctor Who crossover.) Critique is more than welcome - I know this is more than likely crap so I need the tips. I'm rusty with fanfiction. I'm more of an original fic writer, and I worry I can't do the characters of White Collar the justice they deserve._

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The FBI agents were not always immune to Neal's blue eyes. He used them as a weapon, a part of him that—when conjoined with his charisma—could be loaded against someone until they had been charmed away to insensibility. Peter knew this, and thought he had a shield against it. He knew when to say "no" to his CI.

Then Neal would come up with reasonable pleas. Peter agreed to the expresso machine because they all needed better coffee, and he would be damned if there wasn't an FBI agent who wasn't happy to see the old coffeemakers go. Some of Neal's schemes—no, they were stings, Peter corrected stubbornly—were brilliant and within the law after Peter had edited out the parts that were not. Sometimes it was stupidity not to listen to Neal Caffrey.

Peter was not a man to tout his authority. The law was meant to protect the people, not to dictate them. That was the reason for his leniency when Neal was out of line. He thought of Neal like a kid struggling to make the right choices but too lured by the temptation to stay within the lines. It was all right to give him the benefit of the doubt, and lately, Neal had been trustworthy enough not to go astray—much. Peter was beginning to trust him. But sometimes, for the sake of remembering the word, Peter would say it: "No."

Neal looked at him like a desperate teenager, begging his parents not to make him stay with a family member or be supervised because he was too old for it. His blue eyes promised no party when there would always be a party wherever Neal Caffrey went. "Oh, c'mon, Peter. Why not?"

"I want to go home to my wife and my dog and my dinner, that's why." The thought of all three of those things—those precious bits of normalcy—made Peter wish he had a button that would transport him, chair and all, into his home without worrying about the drive home or the remainder of his work hours. He was more than ready for the weekend.

"But you can bring El with you."

"Is Satchmo welcome?"

"I don't see why we couldn't smuggle him in."

"Like you did when you went to the planetarium with him?"

Neal inhaled deeply, smirking a little, when he said, "That wasn't smuggling. He posed as a seeing eye-dog."

"Uh-huh. And you propose we do that again? And what do you mean, 'he posed'?" Peter narrowed his eyes. "My dog knows how to behave, unlike a certain somebody…"

"I get it," said Neal quickly. "Peter, _please_."

Peter shook his head. Neal left his office, shoulders drooped slight as if to indicate contrition. It was false, of course. Neal never gave up that easily. The last time he had wanted someone to go with him to any sort of event outside his radius, he had asked every single person in the building. But that was before Neal had wedged himself into the lives of the Burke family, and that would be his shoe-in for getting what he wanted. So Peter waited, and he pretended to be immersed in a file between catching glimpses through the glass at his CI. He knew when Neal slipped out the doors just what he was doing, who he was calling.

Therefore, Peter was unsurprised when the phone rang and he picked it up and heard El on the other side. "Honey, Neal invited us to an art gallery tonight, and I told him we would go. We can go out to eat before the viewing."

And so Peter's "no" was dismissed. His wife was excited, and if he thought he could refuse Neal, it was the opposite with El. His happiness was dependent upon hers, not because he would be made miserable by her if she was not pleased, but because her smile was always worth any extra effort or sacrifice on his part.

When Peter had finished exchanging dinner ideas with El and hung up, he went out to the landing and called Neal's name, accompanied by a two-finger point that only made his partner smuggle his grin unconvincingly.

"Yes, Peter?" asked Neal cheerfully when he strode into Peter's office.

Peter put his hand on his hip. "You went around me and called El. Wasn't there someone else in this entire building you could ask?" He nodded to the glass, to the FBI agents beyond. "The last time you wanted a chaperon, you asked every single person here. I'm sure someone would have wanted to go." Then he realized something—Neal had been pressuring him for days, but he hadn't overheard him ask anyone else.

Neal shrugged, hands in pockets. "Yes, but there's no one I would want to go with more than you and El." There was a tenderness in his blue eyes, a sincerity that touched Peter in that steady gaze. "You're family to me."

After a few minutes of stunned silence, Peter smiled. "You should have said that earlier."

"I didn't want you to think I was trying to con you. I had to tell you after I knew you were going, so you'd know I wasn't saying it to influence your decision."

"Oh, you knew I was going from the beginning, Neal. You've gotten around me using El before, and I had a hunch you'd try it again. I know you." And just for the sake of a little authority, Peter added sternly but in his playful way, "I caught you twice, remember?"

With a grin, Neal said, "I wasn't trying to run the second time."

_And you're not trying to run now_, thought Peter. Because family didn't run away from each other—not family that was made because you cared so deeply about the people who were in it that they could be nothing else to you.


End file.
